Write to Learn Mini Lesson

Reflection on Write to Learn Mini Lesson:

My writing to learn activity was a writing break. I wanted to have students hear the name of the theorem and first think about what they are looking to discover. Then I wanted to an activity to discover the Triangle Angle Sum Theorem, and then reflect on the discovery by putting it in ones’ own words. In my preparation, I decided I was going to use an activity of manipulating a triangle to do a physical proof of the theorem. I used this activity with my kids last summer and they loved it. I took time to practice, and essentially script, my mini lesson. I wanted to make sure I demonstrated each portion of the mini lesson, but still kept it to five minutes. I also took pictures of each step of the activity, in order to create the step-by-step directions. Last summer, I simply demonstrated the ripping, but then orally told them to place the vertices together. I felt prepared prior to my lesson.

There are definitely things I would change, but there were also some positives of my mini lesson. I think that a lot of people enjoyed the hands on activity, and then time to reflect on it afterwards (although that was kind of cut short!). If I could do it again, I’m not sure I would’ve had the writing break before the activity. I would’ve maybe just had them go into discovering how many degrees are in a triangle, and then let them know the theorem that they just proved to themselves. I wanted students to get into the mindset of what they were looking for, but I’m not sure if it was as effective as I wanted it to be. I also could’ve modeled how to write ones’ own definition or discovery. I wouldn’t want to write out an entire definition of the Triangle Angle Sum Theorem because I wouldn’t want mine to be copied down. I still want the students to reflect on their discovery and formulate their own, and not simply copy mine.